All hope was lost, as we sat by the fires of the Ashen Town north of Bree Aefenwine and I. Soft were the melodies I called forth from my grandmother’s harp, mourning those we had lost in the Betrayed City. And then he came, his weary mount’s hooves echoing hollowly across the wooden bridge from the north. Bawdewyne, my Protector! As the hope rose in my heart, a chill swept over me. Lost to aelf thralls in a haunted city surrounded by the shades of the fallen, what manner of creature was this? An eorling or a spirit sent to entrap us?
A knife of cold iron, the old tales say that the spirits of the dead fade at its touch. The word hoard of my people speaks of its power to undo enchantment. So solid he seemed, so filled with anger at Steora who else could it be? But my heart was not easy until we saw the drops of ruby red mortal blood, shed by cold iron, upon his arm.
And so we embraced him and listened to his tale of how Steora left willingly with their captors, her fate unknown. We listened, not sensing the shadowy figures that drew near, that encircled us. All at once it seemed we were surrounded by the brigands from the Betrayed City, those whose words in the accursed aelf tongue I had fled so many days before, and with them Steora. In terror I backed away, the eorling warriors standing forth to face the aelf thralls, but their raised bows left no retreat but a quick death, falling from the banks into the river beneath. Mayhap that would have been better than that which followed?
The aelf thrall spoke to the warriors, their voices by turn harsh and rapid when they spoke as wealas and soft and beguiling as they murmured to each other, weaving Eorl-knows what enchantments in the ancient aelf tongue. I could not follow their words easily but at length it seemed they accused Steora of theft. Though no man of the Mearc would see what claim these ragged thralls could have on scattered treasures of the ancient Cynings of men, countless centuries after their betrayal. Steora, my friend, who begged and wheedled at the thralls as though a slave of the ancient ones herself and not a woman of the Mearc! Cold iron it took to prove she had not fallen under enchantment, the same cold iron that seemed to show one wealas at least not bewitched. What of the others who seemed so willing to loose their cruel arrows, to slay us, for no crime except seeking to flee them? All were marked by a symbol of silver, perhaps a mark of their servitude to the aelf wicca?
And what of our guide, the southerner who disappeared into the haunted fog the night before first the thralls found us and reappeared as they found us once more. His countenance and words are pleasant and his tales of a great sea fill me with a longing to see the waters without end. But does he serve us or another darker purpose?
Cold iron had touched Steora, my dearest friend, and still she betrayed my Mentor to those who served the aelf wicca. Cold iron, cold as the hand that touched my heart at her words. They seek him that is clear, though their purpose is not. We are surrounded by a growing darkness, darker than the tales of old I sing.
I only hope I reach him in time.
